


With Silver Bells and Cockle Shells

by lindsey_grissom



Category: Mamma Mia! (2008)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-04
Updated: 2008-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-10 14:51:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Those are dangerous visions, you aren't that girl you thought he knew</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Silver Bells and Cockle Shells

**Author's Note:**

> This is set before the end of the movie, during the "Voulez Vous" dance. A little, '_if they were dancing, what would she think?_' kind of thing.

You hate that you want to be here, and you hate that you shouldn't. Which just about sums up your state of mind whenever he's near you. It hasn't changed over time. You hate that too.

It should have, you're sure; twenty years is a long time, a lifetime but it's like nothing's changed.

They're all here, Harry, Bill..._Sam._

Sam, who worked his way into your life, into your heart. Who made you promises you believed in, built a dream inside your head you've been trying to live; without him. Then took it all away; your heart, your dreams, your soul.

He said he loved you, you believed that too. You haven't since, no matter that Harry said it so sweetly, and Bill had it written into the sand.

You said you loved him...you wanted that to change with time. It didn't, it hasn't. Even the memories can't make you doubt your feelings, can't make you look at him and not quiver inside. But you couldn't have known that. You shouldn't have been able to know that, because he went away and you told him never to come back. And when he didn't you knew it was over, knew you'd fallen hard and fast and not looked to see if he'd be there to catch you. He wasn't. But Harry was. And Bill was.

It wasn't the same, but it was safer, you hadn't loved them like him, but it had been enough at the time. And they gave you Sophie. One of them, all of them, and you can't hate him for that, the rest, but never that.

You see him in her, and that scared you so much at first, because you wanted to see it as much as you didn't. But you can see Bill there too, and Harry and that doesn't hurt quite as much.

And now he's here, they're here and you don't know why and you'd probably be able to work it out if the wedding wasn't tomorrow, and he wasn't one of them. It's more than you can take and function with and every time he looks at you, you can see the ghost of yourself in his eyes.

But those are dangerous visions; you aren't that girl you thought he knew. Your heart hasn't changed its beat but it's heavier, and you won't give him the power to break it again. Because you're too old to need fixing, but too young to let life fade and you don't think you could live that well with a heart that's more than only fractured.

You've lived around your past for so long it's become a habit. You've told lies that aren't quite truths and that action seems to have stuck. You're doing it all over again with them, you're not alone this time, but it's still the same. It's the nightmare you knew would come true, and you wonder what you really did that makes this all deserved, because you honestly can't remember and you'd like to know before it kills you.

He spins you away from him as the music around you speeds up, but he doesn't let you go and you don't fight too hard to leave. You're back in his arms again, moving to a rhythm that feels familiar but rehearsed. You're not dancing the way you used to, but your body moulds to his movements so naturally you didn't realise you were caught until it was too late.

His eyes sparkle in the flickering lights and you wonder why he's here. Not in your courtyard, but on your island, in your life, after so long away. You wonder if he thought you'd still be here, waiting all these years. You are but you aren't, because you didn't realise until you saw him again that he was the real reason you stayed.

But he can't know that, and he won't because he never really knew you, it was all a lie. A beautiful, wonderful, heartbreakingly perfect lie. But a lie that you've lived with for almost twenty-one years. Just another on the pile that's been slowly drowning you, Sophie the only lifeguard in your sea.

You could forget if you wanted to, you could pretend if you let yourself, but you won't. Because no matter how good it feels to be in his arms again, to have his breath puff against your cheek and his body press tight against you, the fall would kill you this time whether someone else caught you or not. Fantasies have the power to hurt you more than reality ever could, because they bring hope and that's far too easy to rip away.

And you're not that girl with the wizened eyes and the innocent heart. There's nothing left in you he didn't touch and change, and then damage when he left. But he made you feel alive, which makes it harder to hate him because he's doing it again.

It could be the wedding and the guests, but you know it's not. You might not be happy but your heart keeps pounding and your emotions have been switching around so quickly it's a wonder anyone's kept up. If they have. And he did that. By turning up with a smile. In his suit and his polished shoes with his smile.

He can look at you and smile, while you have to hold your lips closed against a scream. It's not fair, but it never was, and you love him though you wish you didn't. He's dragging up feelings you know you buried so deep down, and making you live when you'd adjusted to surviving.

He came back, but he'll leave again and you know that twenty years should be too late. But it very nearly isn't. Because you stayed and he came back, and sometimes it doesn't seem all that long at all. But it was, and it's not real again, and all you really need to think about is Sophie and the wedding and how to keep them all away from her.

And you'll think about yourself when it's over. You'll hide the pain until he's gone. You'll wait until everything has settled and everyone is happy before you'll cry your heart into your pillow. Again. And then you'll wake up one morning and you'll push it aside; cover him beneath the memories in the archives of your life.

You turn as the music dips again and he finally lets you go. You watch him blend into the thrumming crowd and fist your hands to stop the tears. This is Sophie's night and no one is going to ruin it, not even if you really just want to run away and hide.

You don't need to be taken care of, but every time he walks away, you wish you were.

 

**End.**


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